


For the Triumph of Evil

by Mihan



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 10:49:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20526773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mihan/pseuds/Mihan
Summary: "The only thing that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" -Edmund BurkeThis is based on the amazingCanterbury-era AU of Szcay's incredible White Collar War Crimes series so I would recommend reading that first.  My thought after reading it was "What if Naomi had turned Alex away?" and this was born.





	For the Triumph of Evil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Szcay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Szcay/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Crawlspace](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12357828) by [Szcay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Szcay/pseuds/Szcay). 

> Disclaimer: I do not own the Expanse and am writing this purely for fun
> 
> A/N: This is a little What-if based off of the incredible universe Szcay created in White Collar War Crimes, namely the third in the series, Crawlspace, which I have been intrigued with since the day I read it. In no way is this meant to bash any of the characters. This is just a scenario that wouldn't leave me alone so I wanted to explore it a little from a perspective that wasn't Alex's.

Naomi tried to squash the guilt that settled over her shoulders like a heavy wet rag as she watched Amos walk Alex back towards the entrance of the maintenance tunnels. She saw the slump in the pilot’s shoulders and had seen the sliver of hope flicker and fade from his eyes when she’d broken it to him that there was nothing that they could do for him. That maybe he ought to go speak to his Sponsor. It was uncomfortably apparent that none of them believed that Captain McDowell would care. The worst part is how_ nice _ Alex had been about it.

“I understand. I...I’m sorry for bothering you. Thanks anyway,” he had murmured hoarsely, swallowing. In the dim light, the bruises on his face were dark smudges that gave him a gaunt look. The white collar around his neck gleamed like a malicious beacon even in the low light. Naomi felt an uncomfortable tightness in her chest that didn’t let up even once Alex was gone from her sight.

When Amos returned, his expression was unreadable, but the words burst out of Naomi anyway. “Amos, there’s nothing we can do.”

“I know, boss,” Amos answered. His tone was as even as ever, but Naomi couldn’t let it go.

“What was he even expecting? What can _ we _ do for him?” Naomi asked, shaking her head furiously. 

She wasn’t mad at Alex. Not really. The Martians had been dealt a horrifying fate. For all the atrocities that Mars had been responsible for, she still couldn’t believe that Earth had decided that slavery would be the best way to humble their long-time enemy. The desperate look in Alex’s eyes and his sad, final look of resignation wouldn’t leave her alone. This was what directed her anger away from herself and at Alex for weak, selfish moment. She didn’t need this shit in her life. She had a lifetime’s worth of guilt looming over her already. How dare he lay this at her feet as well.

“I don’t know, boss.” Amos’ quiet voice still lacked inflection, but Naomi heard judgment anyway.

Her eyes narrowed at him. “What do you think we should have done?”

Amos shrugged. From anyone else it might have been a cavalier dismissal, but Amos didn’t quite look at her at first. He had returned to the open panel she’d found him working on with Alex huddled beside him. He went right back to the mess of cables, but she could tell it was a tactic to buy time. She breathed in deeply and let it out with some of her frustration. The guilt lingered like a sickening stone in her gut. “You think we should have helped him.”

“Yeah,” Amos said but then looked up at her with complete and utter trust in those large blue eyes. The blind faith always made something prickle uneasily on the back of Naomi’s neck. “But if you say no, that’s it, boss. It’s just like you said. Not like we can do much for him anyway.”

“Yeah,” Naomi answered softly, unsure. Amos flicked the mask of his welder’s helmet back down and picked up his tools. Just like that, he was huddled back over his work and left her to her thoughts and that horrible feeling that she’d just sent a man off to his doom. For a fleeting second, she glanced down the narrow, dank hallway and wondered how far Alex had made it by then and if she could catch up if she (hypothetically) went after him.

“You said you had an idea?” Amos’ question pulled her attention back to him.

_ It’s not our problem. I’m sure someone else will help him. Better than we can anyway _ . Naomi told herself. She repeated it again and again. After a while, she wasn’t quite reassured, but for the moment it was enough to push away some of the unease. She welcomed the return to normalcy, to the hundreds of little problems that the _ Cant _ had that she _ could _ deal with. “I was thinking about the issue with that coil…”

Weeks went by, and life went on. A cascade of failures had plagued the _ Cant _ on their return trip to Ceres Station so Naomi had little time to think of Alex or the plight of the Martians. Her days were spent trying to keep the shoddy ice hauler from falling to pieces, but with every problem she and Amos fixed three more problems seemed to appear. It made her increasingly grateful that they were such an efficient team. There were days when they barely spoke more than a few words to each other, which wasn’t unusual but Naomi suspected that it had a lot to do with the fact that they hadn’t slept more than a handful of hours between them. Their days became a blur of work with few bites to eat in between and then more work until their bodies gave out to sleep for a few precious hours. Then it was rinse and repeat.

The Captain looked them up and down when it was time to report in. “No offense, but you two look like shit. And you smell like it too.”

Naomi bit back a few choice Belter curses that immediately bubbled up from the depths of her exhausted mind. Instead, she said. “We’ve done all we can for now, sir.”

“Will she get us back to Ceres in one piece? This ice isn’t going to deliver itself, Miss Nagata,” McDowell replied. As usual, he was slumped behind his desk that was surrounded by the strange collection of ceramic and glass cats. Naomi always tried not to look at them whenever she had to speak to the Captain in his quarters. Their fake, soulless eyes gave her the creeps, and the complete lack of explanation as to why they were the only real personal possessions that the Captain owned made them even more disconcerting for some reason.

“Yes, but only if we maintain a constant burn and adjust for power fluctuations at specific vectors,” Naomi said. She was about to launch into a deeper explanation, eager to make him understand the _ why _ so that all her and Amos’ hard work over the past weeks wouldn’t be undone. However, she’d barely open her mouth before McDowell held up one meaty hand to stop her.

“If you’re sure, go to the flight deck and explain it. Try not to make it too complicated, okay? I want us back on Ceres as soon as possible before the big bosses start asking too many questions. Oh and for fuck’s sake you two take a shower. Use two of the MX’s rations of water if you need,” McDowell looked between them with a disgusted frown, as if he weren’t the fattest and most slovenly put together person on the crew.

His casual statement to use the rations of their Martian crewmates made Naomi frown. She shook her head. “That won’t be necessary, but thank you. It won’t take long to explain to Alex what he needs to--”

“Not Alex. Tell Ade,” McDowell interrupted.

Naomi’s frown deepened, confused. “Ade?”

“Yes, Ade. Blonde? Pretty? Usually in the navigator’s seat?”

“Right, the same blonde who IS the _ navigator _,” Amos played along, nodding eagerly despite the fact that he was frowning at their captain with a similar feeling of confusion. “Cap, why would we tell Ade instead of Alex?”

McDowell glared at him sternly, unimpressed by his cheekiness. “Because he’s indisposed. Ade’s been flying the ship for the past week. Haven’t you noticed?”

At this, Naomi and Amos exchanged a quick look. They _ had _ noticed, actually. More than a few times, they’d been in the middle of fixing something when out of nowhere the ship would make a strange, sudden turn or power would be diverted randomly for no real reason at all. They’d ended up cursing Alex, who didn’t normally do these things without following up with a hasty apology over the comm or at least a heads-up ahead of time. But Alex hadn’t been flying their ship at all, which explained a lot.

“Alex is indisposed?” Naomi asked dumbly. For no particular reason she could explain, a cold feeling formed in the pit of her stomach.

“Yes. So he’s not going to be any use to you,” McDowell replied, obviously growing impatient with their interest in the MX he Sponsored and yet didn’t seem to care anything about outside of Alex’s ability to fly their ice hauler. He gave Naomi a pointed look. “But Ade will be all ears. Go on, kids. Time’s a wasting.”

Naomi heard the dismissal loud and clear. McDowell all but shooed them out. She stiffly nodded and turned to leave, Amos on her heels. They exchanged another glance outside. Amos’ face was neutral, but she saw the stirrings of something like concern in his eyes. Neither of them spoke about it and wordlessly made their way to the flight deck.

“Ade,” Naomi greeted, more disturbed than she liked to admit to see the woman in the seat that Alex usually occupied.

“Hi Naomi! Amos,” Ade greeted with a pleasant smile. “What brings you two all the way up here?”

“We’ve got some instructions about the trip back to Ceres,” Naomi answered and cocked her head at the other woman, feigning a casual curiosity. “Are you flying this boat now? Where’s Alex gone to?”

The way Ade’s warm smile faded and how her expression shuttered made Naomi’s insides twist. For a second, Naomi thought she saw tears well up in Ade’s eyes but the other woman blinked hard, and they were gone. Ade looked between them uncomfortably. “Oh, uh, Alex? He’s...he’s indisposed. Is there something I can help you with?”

Naomi wanted to pry. She was struck by the same wording that Ade had used as the Captain. _ Indisposed. What do they mean by that? _

“Amos and I have got the _ Cant _ stable, but we need you to make some adjustments as you take us back to Ceres,” Naomi began, falling back to the comfortable world of ships and engineering. 

They were the problems at hand, not someone else's that she didn't want to get involved in. She had to run the explanation by three times, often having to stop to elaborate or repeat herself whenever Ade had a question or her eyes became a bit too glazed over. Naomi knew it was mostly her tiredness that made her irritable at having to repeat herself, but Alex usually got it the first time around. So why wasn't he there doing his job instead of Ade?

Only when Ade was able to repeat back to her the instructions verbatim did Naomi leave. Even then she was only mildly satisfied that the navigator-turned-pilot wouldn’t accidentally undo all of her and Amos’ hard work. Or get them all killed. Naomi sighed wearily. _ At least I wouldn’t have to worry any more. _

She found Amos waiting just outside the flight deck. Two Martians trying to squeeze by muttered nervous pardons and scurried past Amos as fast as they could. Their white collars drew the eye like metal to magnets. Naomi pressed her lips together in displeasure when she saw that one had a black eye and several faded and fresh bruises peppering her face while the other had an arm pressed to his chest as if it pained him. She tried to think of their names, something in her wanting to reach out at the sight of the obvious pain and distress, but she found she couldn’t put any names to faces. They were already down the narrow corridor and around the corner by the time it occurred to her to say something else. Anything. 

Her eyes drifted unconsciously back into the flight deck, towards the pilot’s chair where Ade was frowning over something at the controls. Naomi swallowed to quell the feelings that she felt welling up in her chest. _ Indisposed _ . 

The more Naomi tried to tell herself that it wasn’t their problem, to move on (because hell, what could they do?) and mind her own business, the worse she felt. At the same time, hadn’t she come to the _ Canterbury _ hoping to escape the drama of her own past? Why should she ruin the years of hard work she’d invested carefully rebuilding herself for a cause she had no business being a part of?

“You alright, boss?” Amos asked. Again, his quiet voice brought her out of her conflicted thoughts and back to reality.

She nodded at him, not quite ready to put the thoughts into words lest it shake her resolve to stay uninvolved. “Let’s get some rest, Amos. Coffee before we head in?”

“I’d rather take something stronger in it than creamer, but coffee will be a good start,” Amos grinned.

Naomi offered him a half-smile. “Maybe we’ll run into Shed, and you’ll get your wish.”

The mess hall was slowly filling, indicating that they’d just happened to stop right before chow time. Even luckier, they found the ship’s med tech sitting by himself at a table along the far wall. Shed Garvey looked as tired and worn out as they did. He must have noted the same thing as he stared up at the two of them. After a moment, he quipped. “I would say you two look like shit, but I want to save you the trouble of telling me that I’m one to talk.”

“Thank you for that,” Amos answered easily. He had a bulb of coffee nestled in one large hand. Holding it out slightly, he raised an eyebrow at Shed in a wordless entreaty.

Shed laughed, already pulling out a flask he’d had stashed from an inner pocket of his jumpsuit. “I got you, Burton.”

“My man,” Amos whooped and let Shed pour a generous heap of whatever alcoholic gutrot he was carrying around with him as a refresher that week. Whatever it was made Amos let out a low whistle after he took a sip of his new and improved coffee.

Shed offered the flask to Naomi, but she shook her head. She had barely touched her own bulb of coffee tasting water. “What’s the word, Shed?”

“Too many long shifts is what, Naomi. Too many bodies with too few supplies,” Shed sighed with a morose look at his bulb. Naomi suspected that it was more of his gutrot than it was coffee at that point.

“That ain’t nothing new though, right?” Amos asked and drained his coffee like it was a shot. Perhaps that was a more apt description. He slammed it down with a delighted hiss of an exhale.

Shed was already pouring him another. There was a distinctly unhappy note in his tone as he went on. “No, but throw in a fucking inhumane law, mix with a ship filled with slaves outnumbered by people who like to exploit said inhumane law, and what you get is me working double time. Shit, did I say slaves? I meant...Martian Expats or whatever bullshit the EMSO is using to sell it. Oh, and the XO needs a full mental health treatment. So there’s that.”

His outburst was met by silence. After a beat, Amos dryly said. “Shed, man. You gotta’ actually give me a buzz before you can kill it.”

This elicited a rueful but humorless smile from Shed. He slid the flask over to Amos as an apology. “Sorry sorry.”

Their surroundings backed up Shed’s outburst in a disturbing way. Naomi saw a few Martians huddled together in a far corner, looking for all the world like they were trying to draw as little attention as possible despite the glaring white of their collars. One of them was the girl from earlier with the bruised face, but the other man that had been with her was nowhere to be found. It was strange how even in the small space of the mess hall it was as if there was an invisible wall that separated the Martians from the rest of the crew. Naomi didn’t see Alex among the Martians. _ Indisposed. _

She looked back at Shed with a question that was beginning to form even as another part of her insisted for her to stay out of it and to _ let it go _ . It was as if on cue, they were interrupted by a figure that came striding directly up to the table. James Holden, newly promoted Executive Officer of the _ Cant _, nodded a polite greeting to each of them, but his eyes settled on Shed.

“Hey, XO. Congrats, by the way,” Shed said with a little toast.

“Thanks. I can’t say the promotion’s under the best circumstances. Not what I imagined anyway,” Holden sighed, not looking pleased in the least by his new title. He was a handsome Earther and known as a bit of cad with the ladies but also fair and hard-working. Naomi had always respected him for his candid nature; with time, she thought he’d do well as their XO. She hoped the stress wouldn’t break him the way it had their old one.

A burst of raucous laughter momentarily interrupted them. Naomi glanced over her shoulder and saw that with the increase of people pouring into the mess hall for lunch came trouble. One of the Martians was standing and was covered head to toe in the day’s stew that the mess hall kitchen was serving. A group of Belters, some of whom Naomi recognized as lower deck scum from Engineering (much to her chagrin), were crowding him and laughing. The other Martians, trapped by the group and outnumbered, were obviously trying not to draw the Belters’ ire onto them.

“Shed,” Holden said. His eyes were on the spectacle, and his expression was hard and sad. “McDowell wants to see you. He’s waiting for an update.”

“I can’t give him very much until I hear back from the doctor on Ceres. I sent him the mental health assessment I did right after it was done, but I haven’t heard anything back yet,” Shed ran a hand through his hair. He was trying not to turn and look at the poor Martians, but Naomi saw how clenched his jaw was and the way he kept curling and uncurling a fist.

“No, not about that. He wants to know when Alex will--” Holden began distractedly but the sight of one of the Belters yanking another Martian forcibly out of his chair by his collar was enough to stop him. Naomi saw the moment something changed in Holden’s face, like a switch had been flipped. He gave one calm bark for Shed to ‘hold on a sec’ and then stormed across the mess hall like a man ready to go to battle. Without knowing why, Naomi followed him, which drew Amos over as well.

“Hey! What the fuck is going on here?” snarled the _ Canterbury’s _ new XO, his voice like a crack of thunder in the enclosed chamber. His tone and his presence was enough to make the Belter, Tosh, release the poor Martian that he’d been manhandling.

“Nothing, bosmang! We just being friendly,” Tosh said, hands up as if to show his innocence. The Martian didn’t dare move, his head bowed. The one covered in stew hadn’t moved either and stood rooted in place with his eyes lowered, trembling.

Holden looked from Tosh to the other men in the group, who had wisely begun to drift away from the Martians and Tosh. His dark eyes fell back on Tosh, whose arrogant face hadn’t lost its sneer. “It doesn’t look friendly to me. In fact, if I didn’t know better I would say you were harassing these crew members.”

“It’s not illegal. They _ pomang. _ They need to know their place,” Tosh shot back, chin thrust upwards defiantly. It took a moment for it to sink in that he was referring to the bodily harm of the Martians; by the new laws laid out by the United Nations he wasn’t wrong. Not exactly.

Holden’s eyes narrowed, first in the direction of the two Martians who were still frozen on the spot, and then back to Tosh. “Maybe not. But on this ship, you follow the rules. And from the looks of it, you have flagrantly violated the one where _ we don’t waste food _. That alone is worth a week down in the bowels scrubbing crawlspaces.”

Tosh blinked, startled. Then, he immediately looked outraged. “You can’t--”

Holden gestured towards the two frightened Martians, going on loudly. “And as I see it what you’re doing here is damaging the resources of this ship. Not to mention whoever sponsors these two. Damaging or taking resources from the ship without permission makes you a _ thief _. You know how Captain likes to deal with thieves. Maybe we bring up their sponsors and get the EMSO to slap you a hefty fine on top of that while we’re at it, yeah? You think their sponsors won’t jump at the chance to make a little script out of your ass?”

Naomi saw the defiance beginning to flag on Tosh’s face as Holden spoke. Tosh had always been a sniveling coward, just a loud one that liked to take advantage of weaker people. Unfortunately, there were people that fell in line with him. Maybe Holden’s transformation from the mild-mannered, relatively friendly Earther into this steel-eyed, hard-nosed XO was startling enough to shake the overconfidence only a bully could have.

There was something increasingly dark and angry in Holden’s voice, something she’d never heard before and sent a chill down her spine. Holden advanced slowly, his shoulders squared. He wasn’t a big Earther like Amos, but a lifetime in the gravity well of Earth had at least filled him out with solid mass that could still be dangerous if wielded properly. When he was in Tosh’s face, fury swimming in his dark eyes, Naomi thought he looked bigger and scarier.

“Don’t think I don’t know what else you’ve done, you degenerate piece of shit. He didn’t rat you and your gang out, but he didn’t need to. Legal or not, you’re going to pay for what you’ve done. One way or another,” Holden said in a low, menacing voice. Just to her left, Naomi saw Shed stiffen out of the corner of her eye. When she glanced at him, his expression was a strange mix of helpless fury and disgust as he looked upon the scene in front of them.

Tosh’s face was pale with rage, but the fight drained out of him. He and Holden stared each other down for a while longer. Finally, he lifted his hands again in surrender. “Fine. We leave them be. Warning heard, XO.”

Holden shook his head. “It wasn’t a warning. You and your gang here have crawlspace duty for a week. Any more protests and I make it two, and you start losing liberty and priority for food and water. Don’t fucking push your luck.”

The staredown didn’t last for much longer. Tosh and his little gang of cronies slunk away, retreating out of the now near-silent mess hall, resentful but defeated. For now. Naomi swallowed and looked back at Holden, wondering if he knew just how petty and resourceful Belters could be. There was a part of her deep down that automatically recoiled at the sight of an Inner pushing a fellow Belter around. The larger part of her felt a deep well of respect for someone who stood up for the weak.

“Are you alright?” Holden asked the two Martians.

The stew-covered one nodded. “Y-Yes, XO. T-Thank you.”

“No harm done, sir,” the other man quietly added. There was a bruise forming around his neck where he’d been yanked upwards. Naomi was suddenly struck by how all of the Martians looked beaten and battered these days.

“You know that’s not going to keep them away for long,” Holden grimly said, now addressing all of the Martians present. The rage had diminished into a sad resignation. It made Naomi think of Alex again. Holden looked between the Martians. “I can’t protect you all the time. The EMSO has strict rules about commanding officers interfering with sponsorship business. This could have easily broken those rules if just one of them gets a sponsor to consent. I would suggest you stick close to your sponsors and try not to get isolated. Being in public won’t protect you, but...maybe someone will intervene.”

He paused, and Naomi felt her heart skip a beat at his next words. “You all must have heard what happened to Alex.”

A ripple of distress went through the Martians. After a moment, the battered woman (Naomi thought her name was Cindy or Sibil or something like that) asked in a shaking voice. “Sir, is he…? I mean--I heard--did they? Did they…?”

He sighed and glanced over at Shed. The med tech came forward, looking uncomfortably at the Martians. “He’s alive. I won’t get into it because he’s technically my patient, but I will say that you’d do well not to end up in his position. Trust me.”

The haunted look in Shed’s eyes was what made Naomi’s stomach twist again. She caught Amos’ eye. He was watching the exchange silently and without much reaction, but she saw the tension in his shoulders. She wondered if he felt the same sickening guilt that she felt gently resting in the back of her mind, whispering insidious accusations about action and inaction.

Holden dismissed the Martians, and they scurried off as fast as they could. Shed looked tired now, but he said to Holden. “I’m going to go check on things in medical. Then I’ll go talk to Captain.”

“I’ll go with you. Might as well explain this mess to him before Tosh gives him the sob-story version about the mean new Earther XO picking on him,” Holden said with a sardonic tone but with absolutely no humor. He sounded like a man who knew he had many hard battles ahead of him.

The two of them began to leave, but Naomi couldn’t help but to stop Holden. “Holden, what happened to Alex?”

Holden stared down at her for a moment. She read the same helpless fury that had been on Shed’s face. She almost thought that he wasn’t going to answer but he did, and she was suddenly sorry that she’d asked. “They cornered him somewhere and took him down to the tunnels we don’t use by the waste recyclers. They...they kept him down there for a really long time. They took turns.” Holden’s voice caught, and his adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “He’s in really bad shape, Naomi.”

It became hard to breathe. _ I could have helped him. I could have stopped this. He came to us for help, and I sent him away. _

“He came to us for help when you left him with Amos. A few weeks ago?” she admitted, the words bursting out of her as the shame settled in. “I didn’t think there was anything we could do. I still don’t...I...shit. I didn’t know!”

“Naomi. Hey. Hey, calm down,” Holden’s hand gripped her shoulder. She met his intense gaze, distressed, and didn’t see any contempt or judgement, just a deep sadness and sympathy. It made her feel worse. “You couldn’t have known. It’s not your fault this happened, okay? What could you have done?”

Naomi shook her head helplessly. “I didn’t even try.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. There’s no point. You aren’t the first, and you won’t be the last to turn one of them away when they come to you at their most desperate. There’s not much you can do. Hell, there’s not much even I or the Captain can do,” Holden sighed, a deeply tired and aggravated sound. 

When he continued, his tone was gentle, but it cut through her heart anyway. “Naomi, it’s not your problem.”

**~FIN~**


End file.
